The Flood
by vega rin
Summary: "The beauty of the world and the tragedy of existence is that one needs another to live." Ensemble with a slight slant on Jesse.
1. Words Needed

The Flood  
by vega  
  
  
RATING: PG-13  
  
CATEGORY: Ensemble with a slight slant on Jesse. Five interconnected, but not necessarily chronological, perspective pieces. Brace for anvils.  
  
SUMMARY: "The beauty of the world and the tragedy of existence is that one needs another to live."   
  
SPOILERS: General Season two. Specific from the Shock of the New, A Fool for Love, and No Man Left Behind.   
  
STATUE: WIP.  
  
DISCLAIMER: These characters are not mine. Due to inconsistent characterizations and not enough background information given in the show, I took some liberation with certain aspects of the characters, but all are (hopefully) within what are said of them on the official websites.   
  
NOTE: My inner Jesse voice just wouldn't shut up, so this is my tribute to Jesse and Pure board for its intelligent discussions and the overall inspiring nature. Also, I owe big thanks to Villanelle, Jessica, Chya, and JillW for their beautiful stories, which probably have affected this story to a great degree.  
  
  
  
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I. Words Needed. (Emma)  
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*  
  
  
The silence is oppressive.  
  
She thinks she might have been missing the silence until now, this freedom from the mélange of emotions and the pains that haunt her every moment of her waking hour. Yet now all she wants is for this silence to go away, this void to be filled with the feelings and even all the agonies that follow.  
  
She hasn't been able to sense Shalimar for a while now, her distinctive feral signature no longer traceable. She tries to follow the echoes of Jesse's presence somewhere, anywhere, in this world, but all she can sense is fog, the snow crash of white spots that dance across nothingness. It doesn't resemble the coldness of death, but she doesn't know for how long that can hold true for Jesse. And Adam...  
  
She takes Adam's hand and tries to feel his pulse. Erratic, but still there. The problem isn't physical. She only senses utter darkness in him.  
  
/God, what a mess./  
  
For a moment, Emma is taken aback by the sudden intrusion of a single thought. She doesn't read exact lines of thoughts, only emotions and presence, but it is an exact thought that she seems to have caught just now, when she can't read anything else. It's certainly not from Adam, who is lying in front of her, so it leaves only one other candidate.  
  
Brennan probably doesn't even notice that she can only watch him, how tense he is, how his arms are tightly crossed, his jaw stiff, fists clenched. He stares at the floor as if there is nothing else he can possibly look at. Not her, and of course not Adam. He's been hidden in a shell that doesn't want to be penetrated, leaving her only with this terrible silence.   
  
Sometimes she thinks she can only reflect the emotions of others, never hers. And with Brennan in a shell, she has nothing left to reflect.  
  
But she doesn't need to use her powers to read him now, does she? She doesn't need to be a psionic to agree with his non-thought.  
  
This is a mess.  
  
The safe house is empty, only a few boxes strewn across the hall like discarded toys that they are. The only conscious occupants -- she and Brennan -- are feeling like comatose because of the shock. The other occupant who is not conscious -- Adam -- is already in a coma.   
  
It isn't supposed to be like this. There should be things and equipments they need in order to set things straight. To get information on things that matter. Like, where they can hide. Where they can find help for Adam. What happen to Shalimar. Jesse.  
  
The bloodstain dyed the sterile floor of the Sanctuary in crimson.   
  
Go, Jesse told her then. Go.   
  
So she did.  
  
"Brennan," Emma says, finally, breaking the dead silence.   
  
Brennan does not move. Adam does not stir.   
  
"Brennan, we need to do something," she tries again, because she no longer knows what to think, what to do. Things have been drawing blank all around and it has already ceased to be frightening. This is just numb, empty.   
  
For the first time since they've arrived here, Brennan turns to her. There's no anger left in his expression any more, and she realizes she prefers Brennan angry than like this, quiet and dejected.   
  
"Like what? What should we do?" he asks, his tone neither bitter nor ironic. It's just a question, plain and simple, asked by a man who has already considered every option that they have.  
  
You're asking me? almost escapes from her lips. Almost, but doesn't. She can't, because this, too, is too much for Brennan. She understands that much even when she can't read him.   
  
They agreed the moment they escaped that the first thing to accomplish was to get Adam well again, heal him and wake him up from the induced coma. Everything else -- like thinking, hoping, despairing -- could come after that. They knew next to nothing of Adam's intricate underground network that could provide them with the much-needed help except for some safe house locations they had sent other new mutants to hide before they settled into their new lives. The only place they knew to have some sort of medical equipment was here, so they came, with all the hope they could scrap. But there's nothing here. Nothing at all.  
  
Suddenly, Emma is wishing that she should have at least helped when Jesse organized the contact files of the emergency underground system. If Adam wasn't, Jesse had always been there to take care of little things.   
  
Neither is here, and Emma and Brennan, only two out of the five, are lost.  
  
"I can try waking him up without the equipment," she suggests finally, quietly, already knowing what Brennan would say.  
  
And he gives the expected answer, "Too dangerous. You can get lost in his head."  
  
"I can nudge him slightly to the consciousness," she tells him, hoping she doesn't sound as uncertain as she feels. It is hard enough to invade one's mind with a full cooperation from the subject, but Adam's complex mind, whose brain might not even be functioning at the moment?  
  
Her hesitation doesn't go unnoticed by Brennan. "It can be also dangerous for Adam. And we don't want him come back as a half-Adam, do we?"--the question part is asked with enough wariness to worry her--"And you're the only one with the power that can be used against them if they come at us all suited up with guns blazing. We can't risk it."  
  
Normally she would see how difficult it is for him to admit the uselessness of his powers in the situation they're in, but they have no time for sentimentality right now. "Tell me what other options we have," she demands flatly.  
  
Brennan meets her eyes. There is silence again. Only this time, they're facing this silence together.  
  
But why does that matter anyway? They have no options. Never did from the moment they took Adam out from the Sanctuary. They had to follow the instinct. To run.  
  
There's a thud echoing through the empty space, and Emma realizes Brennan's fist just came into contact with the wall.  
  
"Goddammit, Adam! You need to wake up! We need you."  
  
If Brennan hoped to get Adam to miraculously get up with his little outburst, he should be disappointed. Emma isn't, because she can only read this void. Nothing seems to be in her any more. Like she no longer knows what to feel. Even disappointment no longer seems to be viable.  
  
So this is how everything goes down, she thinks.  
  
Then, a flash of senses begins to nag her at the back of her consciousness. It absorbs into her mind like an ink drop into a bathtub of water, and she recognizes it for what it is, with a sense of forbidding and dread.  
  
This really is how things go down.  
  
"They're coming," she tells Brennan, her voice dead even to her own ears.  
  
Brennan stands straight, his jaw stiff, his body tense. Fists clenched. One of them is bleeding.  
  
This time, her own thought shatters the silence.  
  
/God, what a mess./  
  
  
  
***  
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.  
-Robert Louis Stevenson.  
***  
  
  
  
For Emma DeLauro, the story of their end slowly dawned on one night, when the various emotions of the residents solemnly echoed through the walls of the Sanctuary like four bells ringing in an empty cathedral.   
  
She lingered at the corridor, listening, wondering, whether she should intrude, whether she should remain only as a listener and not a participant. But the sounds soon became incessant, the need to appease the emotions that haunted her becoming necessary and desperate, and she could no longer just be a listener.  
  
So her first stop was the lab, where the echoes of confusion, loss, determination, and anger were a cacophonic quartet with individual rhymes and rhythms that didn't go together. Adam was hovering over his desk, his fingers working on the keyboard faster than her eyes could see. His emotions were too fast, too huge, too much for her to read in certainty, and she could not read the reasons for them to haunt him now.  
  
"What are you working on?" she asked tentatively, lingering on the entrance long enough for Adam to notice her presence.  
  
Adam sharply turned around, the screen of his computer immediately turned off. He forced a smile into his face, but it was a fraction of a second too late, and she didn't miss the dark something that flickered across his expression.  
  
"Just a little side project of mine," he answered. Nothing told, nothing given away. Just plain Adam. "You all ready for tomorrow?" he asked soon after, quickly covering the silence that testified her disbelief.  
  
Emma wanted to believe Adam was desperate enough to lie to a psionic who knew his complex mindset better than anyone in this world, so she decided to respect this wish. For the moment. "Yep," she answered lightly, "Playing bodyguards for the government bureaucrats. Brennan is less than thrilled."  
  
"Neither am I, but--"  
  
"It's necessary, I know, Adam. Even Brennan knows we need to deal with politics to keep our humble mission afloat."  
  
"But it doesn't mean you have to like it," Adam finished the thought for her. "I agree completely."   
  
He gave her a little, self-deprecating grin, and suddenly she thought she knew what was on his mind.  
  
Do you want to talk about this? Emma asked herself. There was no answer back. Which meant there wasn't a complaint either then. It was decided. She began slowly, "You know, Adam, when I asked the others the question, I didn't mean--"  
  
"I know," he cut her off, not unkindly, but at least abrupt enough to stop her. "But you wanted me to hear it nonetheless."  
  
Had she? Emma wasn't sure why she had asked her friends the question, why she had pushed for the answers when she knew perfectly well Adam had been listening to their conversation. She wasn't sure why she felt she needed to push Adam, who was always the one in control, why she needed to see him shaken and a little lost.   
  
Must be jealousy, she thought. She might have been jealous of Adam, for always having the conviction, for knowing and believing what he was doing.   
  
But now she saw him like this, and she was beginning to think she had been wrong after all.  
  
"You shouldn't pay too much attention to it," she said, by a way of compromise, an apology unspoken.  
  
Adam only grinned faintly. "Go to sleep, Emma. We have a big day tomorrow."  
  
Before she could answer, he turned away, going back to his work and effectively signaling the end of their conversation. She watched Adam for a moment before walking away. Nothing else she could do about this. There were always other background noises, other emotions that begged for her attention.   
  
She pondered which path to follow, but the choice became pretty self-evident; it was either the grief, or the sickening passion that resonated with the laughter echoing through the walls. The Sanctuary was supposedly soundproof--then why could she hear every sound?  
  
She turned her steps and followed the trace of the grief dutifully until it led her to another restless soul.  
  
"That's great, Liam," Jesse was on the phone line, pleasant and all smile. "You made a great progress. Adam would be more than pleased."  
  
On the phone screen, Liam answered sheepishly, //You think so?//  
  
"Of course," Jesse assured him after giving Emma a nod to acknowledge her presence. "Look, I gotta go, but I'll talk to you in a few days, cool?"  
  
The screen disconnected after brief good-byes, and Jesse turned to face her with a smile.  
  
She greeted him with the same small smile. "Hope I didn't interrupt the conversation. How is Liam?" They had come across Liam a few weeks ago, a young molecular with a great potential and in a dire need of guidelines. Right away he'd become attached to Jesse, who had ever since taught him the way to control his powers.  
  
Jesse beamed like a proud teacher he was now, "Great. More than great, in fact, surpassing his teacher."   
  
"I don't think that's possible," she said lightly, but truthfully enough.  
  
"Thanks, but really, Liam's progressing much faster than I ever did. And you know what else he can do. Spontaneous regeneration of some living molecular structure. Makes him a magic healer for us, a rare gift. A unique one, really."  
  
For a second, Emma wondered if this was his source of grief, that he wasn't the best in the field, but she detected nothing but pride in Jesse regarding Liam's progress. She had to probe somewhere else. "So, your leg is really fine?"  
  
Jesse sighed dramatically, eyeing his right leg that had been recently patched up from a particularly rough fight. "It's been weeks already. It would be just fine if people would stop asking every hour or so."  
  
"Grumpy baby," Emma smiled.  
  
He smiled back faintly, but it soon disappeared, leaving no trace of happiness. When he stood up and moved to look down at the empty hall downstairs, she could smell grief from everything that he was, a steady, profound sense of loss flowing through the air like pulse of a warm body. From that, she felt a flash, a quicksilver.   
  
"Who died?" the question came out automatically even before Emma herself could digest the sudden insight.  
  
She froze, waiting for Jesse's reaction. If he felt offended at her intrusion, she couldn't read any of it.   
  
"No peeking, Emma," he said quietly, not turning around.   
  
"I didn't," she answered, feeling slightly defensive. Jesse always broadcasted his emotions like a TV set, the easiest person to read without any effort on her part, probably because he hadn't built a dam around his feelings like others. It was both the best and the worst thing about Jesse. It made her love him and hate him at the same time. "I don't need to be psychic, because I know you," she added unnecessarily.  
  
Jesse said nothing for a moment, and when Emma was beginning to think there would be no answer, he spoke up, his eyes looking down somewhere on the empty hall, "My grandmother."  
  
Emma vaguely remembered hearing from Shalimar that Jesse used to have a whole set of family. A rich family that provided him with everything. It was just that they didn't care for him all that much. She didn't know what to think, what to say. She was empathic, and what was the use? She eventually opted for the empty, "I'm so sorry. You're going to the funeral?"   
  
"I'm leaving tomorrow, after the mission."  
  
"I see," she said, finally. "So you'll be absent for a while."  
  
He nodded.  
  
"For how long?" she asked, suddenly not liking a prospect of Jesse's absence from the team.  
  
"For a while. I need to take care of the estate."  
  
"Estate?" she asked, dumbly.   
  
"Estate," he repeated, his eyes still far away. "The mansions, the businesses, the Kilmartin enterprise that my grandmother took over since my grandfather's death. She left quite a lot to me instead of Noah."  
  
"The Kilmartin Enterprise? The company making computer chips?" *The* Kilmartin enterprise? She had known Jesse was rich--but obviously she didn't know exactly how rich. Why hadn't she made the obvious connection until now?   
  
"And silicon. And other various tech things that this country can't do without," Jesse smiled wearily, "I didn't learn all this computer stuff just from Adam, you know."  
  
She realized she had never seen Jesse like this, never detected any real context of the rich, aristocratic environment he had been brought up in. Even with her empathic abilities, it was impossible to imagine Jesse as the heir of one of the richest industrialists this country had to offer. The subject of their each past was something of a taboo in this team, something none of them particularly wished to discuss with each other, and now it seemed like Jesse's past was going to take him away from them, 'for a while'.  
  
For some reason, Emma decided she didn't like this revelation very much. There was something about this that bothered her like loose shoelaces, like--  
  
"Jesse, you did tell Adam you're going away, right?"  
  
"Would I go anywhere before clearing it up with Adam?"  
  
"But you didn't tell him you might not come back at all."  
  
Her statement hung in the air.   
  
Like a corporeal object that both of them wanted to spontaneously combust right at this moment, it stood between them, defying their wish to ignore it at all cost.  
  
"I did," Jesse said a moment later, his voice emotionless. "Liam is the prospective replacement."  
  
Oh my god, Emma thought. What Adam must be feeling right now. A little more understanding into the state of Adam's mind tonight. "But you didn't tell us," she said, trying not to sound accusatory yet definitely failing.  
  
"I'm telling you now."  
  
"Brennan and Shalimar?"  
  
"They didn't ask."  
  
"Jesse--"  
  
He sighed, raking his dark blond hair with his fingers. "Emma, nothing's decided. I told Adam my uncle wants me to come back and stay, and he said I should think about it. So I'm thinking."  
  
But it wasn't just that. She could read a kind of absolution from him, like he had already made up his mind. Jesse was carefully avoiding her eyes, and now she had an idea. "That's not it, is it? This is what's bothering you."  
  
"This?"  
  
Emma thumped the wall lightly with her index finger. It made a hollow, empty sound against the metal barricade. "This, Jesse. This."  
  
If they listened hard enough, they could hear the laughter and the moans and all the things they probably didn't want to hear resonating from a section of the Sanctuary, something they all had been refusing to acknowledge. Even Adam didn't think of lecturing them on the effect of fraternization on team dynamics and just let things be. Certainly it was boosting morals. At least, for Brennan and Shalimar.  
  
Emma could see Jesse immediately understood what she meant, but to her surprise, he only smiled, shaking his head. She had to admit that it had been a while since she'd seen this particular genuine smile of his, and that she'd missed it, even if the occasion that brought it out was not within her comprehension.   
  
She watched his face, not understanding, and just as instinctively, reached out to read him.  
  
As if burned, he turned away from her. "Don't."  
  
"Jesse--"  
  
"Emma, you don't have to read me. I'd tell you everything you want to know. All you have to do is ask." He stared into her eyes, seemingly recognizing something. "But you don't believe that, do you? You don't believe in words any more. Communication is never a two-way street with you."  
  
She blinked, hard. She didn't understand. She didn't want to. "I don't know what you mean."  
  
"Emma, you think you know everything we feel, but just how much do you know your own?"  
  
For a moment, she was overwhelmed by sadness in his every gesture, every word. This, this whole thing was like a drain with incredible thirst. Emma felt swirling in the emotions that were his and recognized none of hers.  
  
This wasn't what she felt. This wasn't.  
  
"You still haven't answered me," she told him briskly. "I asked you."  
  
"Yes. The answer is yes," he answered simply. He paused for a moment, and almost curiously, he asked, "Does this bother you?"  
  
"No," she answered flatly.  
  
She wasn't lying. It didn't feel like lying.  
  
So it wasn't a lie.  
  
He stared at her for a moment, not inquisitive, not probing, just staring.   
  
He turned away.  
  
He was beginning to walk away, and the answer to all of this came to her mind, the magic words, those that would get him to stay.  
  
And she said them, "Jesse, we need you."  
  
He stopped on his track.   
  
Emma watched him and thought, he's drowning. He was thinking of the forty days of rain engulfing everything around him in terrible, unforgiving blue.  
  
A long moment later, he turned halfway, his voice soft, "No, you don't." At her expression, he only smiled, betraying the air around him that was saturated by grief. "Goodnight, Emma."  
  
She listened to his footsteps until she couldn't hear any more.  
  
She listened inside for noises, sounds. The things that might be her own.  
  
Nothing.  
  
  
***  
  
  
She had loved words, before, for all their beauty and cruelty. That was before she had realized that she could project images onto other people's minds, that she could glimpse into their most secret thoughts without thinking, without wanting. Before all that, she had loved words.  
  
At that time, silence was a strange thing. Sometimes she searched it so desperately as it comforted her better than anything in the world. Other times, she was in hurry to replace it with spoken words. Flowing, living words that didn't hang in the air, that communicated, that kept things lively with their sounds. She would speak as much as she could, as fast as she could, just to fill the silence. Silence could be oppressive.   
  
Much later, Emma's mind could no longer tolerate words. She didn't know why they had suddenly become meaningless in all dimensions. Or maybe she knew. The dissonance. What people didn't say. What people did say and did not mean. What people said with all the words that weren't meant to be uttered.  
  
But she knew exactly when she did realize that they had lost all the meanings for her.  
  
"Wow, Emma, since when are you a Zen master?"  
  
Brennan's casual remark from some time ago still ricocheted.  
  
She had glanced at Shalimar and Jesse when Brennan made that remark, and she saw flashes of images in their minds that they brought up at the time. The images of Emma herself, her first time in the Sanctuary.   
  
"Not a freak like you," she had yelled at them, all edgy and ready to wound anything that she could. Rebellious, violent, even. She had been a confused kid, back then. Confused and lost.  
  
But maybe not. She had known what she was. What she had been.  
  
She could scarcely recognize herself now.  
  
A bit later, she realized that she could blow off people's minds, numbing them and exploding them and at the end, killing them, if she wished. If she willed it.  
  
She thought if pushed too much, she might. All these tides of emotions, all of them haunting at her every footstep, she might.  
  
The words disappeared completely because they weren't needed any more.  
  
  
***  
  
  
//Clear.//  
  
//Clear here.//  
  
//Same here, nothing suspicious.//  
  
//That hot dog looks mighty good. Anyone up for pizza after?//  
  
Emma heard Shalimar crack a small laughter at Jesse's flippant remark over the com. //Nice try, Mr. MiB, but that would be a gigantic waste of our outfits,// Shalimar's reply cracked through the comlink, //I say we should go find ourselves a nice French restaurant. Wine, roses and all that.//  
  
//People, the job's not done yet,// Adam reminded them from Double Helix in a rather stern voice. //And I prefer Italian.//  
  
Emma could practically see everyone's smile on their face at the moment and feel their relief that the event had been finished without a hitch, but she kept her position, occasionally scanning the leaving crowd for any danger and thinking about something else entirely.   
  
People were pouring out from the conference room, chattering loudly about the topic. Too many emotions, too many to keep track of.   
  
She had been focusing on negative emotions, something dangerous. Nothing. There had been nothing before the conference, and nothing while the senator was giving his speech. It seemed almost like a waste of time, and she felt a headache from reading too many minds for dark sensations that she particularly didn't enjoy.  
  
She glanced at the direction where Brennan and Jesse stood guard over the long corridor, checking out the crowd.  
  
They were both wearing black suits straight and straight, and although Brennan didn't look half-bad, it was Jesse who seemed alarmingly comfortable in it. The fancy suit fit him like his second skin, and Emma, for all of its aesthetic worth, wished he were wearing his old jeans and t-shirts. What was worse, he was even clean-shaven today, ditching his long suffering stubble, earning a teasing comment or two from Shalimar when they had set to get to work in the morning.  
  
"Finally realized stubble doesn't attract girls as much as I thought," Jesse had answered Shalimar with an exaggerated sigh.  
  
Shalimar had stifled laughter, playfully tugging at his jacket in a vain attempt to set it straight. "Jess, I can tell you with quite authority you're all very pretty, with or without the stubble."  
  
She doesn't know, Emma had thought then, watching their easy banter. Shal has no clue. She is drowning in her own happiness.  
  
And Jesse was content letting her believe that, making the same old jokes and leading friendly banters. Like nothing was wrong with him.  
  
Emma wasn't sure if she should be infuriated or distraught.  
  
"You're staring a little too hard at your friends," a voice interrupted her listless thought, making her jump.  
  
"Senator," Emma turned around, blush creeping into her cheeks.   
  
But Senator Kline waved away her apparent embarrassment. "I can't blame you there, Ms. DeLauro. Talented and good looking young boys that they are. You all are."  
  
Emma gave him a polite smile, reading nothing but the best intentions from him. The senator, to everyone's surprise, had turned out to be a pleasant man with a warm, grandfatherly smile. He had shown no negativity, even knowing what special 'talents' this particular team had to offer. They now had no problem believing that he was one of the few allies Adam had in the government who understood their cause and even sympathized with them. Emma let herself ease off a little. "Did everything go well with the conference, Senator?"  
  
"I hope it did, but I do not expect miracles overnight. Individuals might be smart, but a crowd of people can be ignorant and dangerous at times."  
  
He definitely reminded her of Adam, and the thought made Emma smile despite everything. "For what it's worth, I think you're courageous for attempting to enlighten people on the danger of possessing even larger military power. Some people might not like what you're doing."  
  
Senator Kline scoffed off, "Adam thinks I could be in danger, but who'd want to hurt an old hack like me?"  
  
"Many, many people," as if on a cue, Shalimar appeared right behind him, sporting a causal grin and a not-as-casual dress chosen to 'blend in' with the crowd tonight. "That's why we're here."  
  
"And thanks to you, nothing happened." Clearly, he didn't believe the threats he'd been receiving to be acted upon.   
  
Shalimar took his compliment with a modest nod and a wink aimed at Emma and gently ushered the older man on his way. "Let's return to your suite, Senator. Your staff are waiting for you."  
  
As they headed on their way through the corridor and up to the suite upstairs, Shal inconspicuously came to her side. "You seem pretty preoccupied today. You okay?"  
  
"Just a bit tired."  
  
"That all?"  
  
Shalimar was obviously not buying it. Well, too bad, Emma thought. "Is there supposed to be something else?"  
  
Shalimar put her hands up good-naturedly to gesture surrender. "Nothing at all. Sorry I asked."   
  
Emma watched Shalimar getting back to her bodyguard mode in her way that made everything seem so casually natural to the older feral. Emma was well aware that even if she and Adam couldn't change Jesse's mind and Brennan was out of the question, Shalimar might still have a shot at it. But it felt like betraying Jesse's confidence, even when he hadn't imposed anything such. And for some inexplicable reason, she enjoyed the fact that Jesse had told her first, before Shalimar, before Brennan. Petty, but there it was. Some of her friends sometimes did put her before Shalimar.  
  
She recognized this emotion as bitterness.   
  
She didn't like it. At all.  
  
"Look, Shal--" Emma began, thinking she should mend this somehow, knowing she would regret this.  
  
Just then Jesse jogged along to join them, breathless and in effect stopping Emma from saying anything more.   
  
"Brennan is checking the parameter ahead of us. Everything seems to be in place," he reported, checking out the room with a sweeping glance once again.  
  
"Good," Shalimar nodded, her eyes betraying her relaxed smile with their tight, alert glint. She entered the suite with the senator when they reached his room, leaving Emma to stay with Jesse to guard.  
  
Jesse scanned the corridors, checking for anything out of place. Whether to occupy himself with something to do or to avoid talking to her, Emma wasn't sure.  
  
As soon as this mission was finished, he would leave, she knew.  
  
Emma still didn't know what to think.  
  
When their eyes met, he smiled faintly. Like he knew exactly what she was thinking. And he did. Without any power, he knew her. Even in utter desolation that she knew he felt, he still knew.  
  
His eyes were blue, almost like the terrible blue that he seemed to have imagined himself drown in.  
  
And she still didn't know what to think when the sound of static came through the comlink.  
  
//...not...it....sto..//  
  
"Brennan?" Jesse clicked at his ring, but nothing came through. "Emma?"  
  
She was already concentrating on Brennan's signature and his emotions. Something felt frantic and she almost stumbled except for Jesse's steady hand that was ready to support her.   
  
"Something's wrong," she said, looking up at Jesse's concerned face. "I don't think he's hurt, but something's off."  
  
Jesse was already running as he shouted, "Adam, can you check for Brennan? He's not answering his comlink. Stay here, Emma. I'll check it out."  
  
He quickly disappeared into the end of the corridor.   
  
A few seconds, or eternity, later, Emma heard a shriek, only it wasn't a sound. There was only silence here, yet there it was, this terrible scream that almost split her mind into half with all of its pain.  
  
Terror swept through Emma's mind as she rushed to open the door to the VIP suite.  
  
"Shal? Senator?" her own voice shook so badly that she didn't recognize as hers.  
  
No answer.  
  
She saw the puddles of blood first. Before she reached two people lying on the floor, she already knew one of them was lifeless.  
  
  
***  
  
  
"That's a load of crap," Brennan declared, his voice low and growling but surprisingly not demonstrating his rage physically. Not yet, at least.  
  
Then again, the night is still young, Emma thought.  
  
"I'm not disagreeing with you, Brennan." Adam raked his hair in frustration, his fingers shaking ever so slightly. "However, that's what they're telling me, and that's all I am getting from every source I have. No one else entered the suite beside Kline and Shalimar."  
  
Jesse looked on in front of the computer screen, looking exhausted like everyone else in the room. "They could've always faked the surveillance records of the corridor and entrance to the suite. If only I can get my hands on them--"  
  
Adam shook his head. "They're not about to hand us the evidence."  
  
"Did you try breaking into the system?"  
  
"Already did."  
  
"Then what--" Jesse stopped himself, realization setting. "Then you saw it, the feed from the surveillance. There was no one else entering the suite."  
  
Adam's silence was all the confirmation they needed.  
  
"The feed could still be a fake," Jesse pointed out, and Emma read denial all over, "We need the hard copy to make certain of that."  
  
Adam shook his head wearily. "They won't hand over the hard copy to us. After all, we are their number one suspects."  
  
"Wow, their logic knows no boundaries." Brennan was pacing the room, seemingly disgusted beyond the threshold. "How are *we* the suspects? We were there to protect the senator!"  
  
"And we were doing such a terrific job protecting him, weren't we?" Emma pointed out softly.   
  
Brennan stopped pacing, clearly not happy. "All right, so we might look suspicious, but how do they explain Shalimar's state?"  
  
"They don't have to," Adam said. "They think Kline could've hurt her somehow when trying to fight back."  
  
"Senator *Kline*? Are you kidding? She could've killed him with a snap of her finger if she wanted."  
  
"And instead there is a desecrated body. So, do we tell them that Shalimar could have killed him without being messy about it, therefore she didn't do it?" Adam asked, clearly not expecting to be answered.  
  
"Senator Kline couldn't have done this to Shal. We all know that," Jesse quietly interrupted the dialogue between Adam and Brennan before it turned into a shouting match. "The facts are, the senator was killed while Shalimar was protecting him. Emma was outside but heard nothing, and me and Brennan were fighting off the pro-militant protesters at the lounge and saw nothing. No one entered the suite according to all the cameras and they didn't have any surveillance inside the room so we can't really check it. And we don't know why Shal is..."  
  
Jesse stopped, looking away. He didn't have to continue, because they all knew what he was about to say.  
  
Emma glanced into the lab through the glass walls where Shalimar was asleep. She was unnaturally pale and had lost her usual glow, much like how Emma had found her and the senator. Whenever Emma tried to read into Shal's mind, she had to turn away, unable to continue in its unfamiliarity. She had lost her feral signature that was so distinctly hers, and even though Emma was certain that this was Shalimar that they knew and loved, it was an impossibility that was happening right in front of their eyes.  
  
"She is going to be fine," Adam promised with as much confidence as he could muster. "It's just that--"  
  
"--we don't know why her mutations suddenly disappeared," Emma finished for him.  
  
Adam nodded. His eyes had bags under them, the proof of his sleepless search for the cure for her condition, if there was one.  
  
"Richard Saunders did develop a serum that reversed the genetic mutations," Jesse reminded him.  
  
Something in Adam's demeanor shook, unnoticed by everyone except Emma, at the mention of the doctor who had been hell-bent on 'curing' himself, someone Shalimar had fallen in love with once, a long ago. But Adam, being Adam, recovered quickly enough before Emma could pursue it any further. He continued with his perfectly controlled scientist voice, "His serum reversed *and* degenerated the mutant genes, even the normal ones. Shalimar is perfectly healthy. I don't see anything wrong with her, except that she's--"  
  
"Normal," Jesse said with finality.  
  
"Yes."   
  
They all digested this piece of information without being able to understand it.  
  
"What about the evidence we collected from the scene?" Jesse asked, his words grasping at straws. "Did you process them?"  
  
Once again, Adam looked sorry even before he spoke a word. "Nothing to indicate there was a third party in the room."  
  
"The police was there before us," Brennan said, very strongly indicating his displeasure about that little fact. "They would've just altered the record and disposed of the evidence."  
  
Adam sighed. "The problem is that all evidence that they do have point toward Shalimar as their--"  
  
Brennan might not be pacing now, but he was close to yelling, "Murderer? Assassin? Killer? C'mon, take your pick, Adam."   
  
"--suspect," Adam finished firmly. "And I don't know what else I could do to convince otherwise. Clearly, they don't believe us."  
  
More because of who we are than because of the evidence, she thought. Emma had plainly heard what Adam did not say out loud. Of course. Of course. They could do so many good things for this country and the world, but they would never be one of them, the normal, regular, people. It was ridiculous, actually. She had usually felt pity for their ignorance, but their ignorance was causing them quite a trouble now.   
  
"There are other possibilities, other angles we could pursue," Jesse said, breaking the silence with his quiet, thoughtful voice.  
  
"Such as?" Adam asked.  
  
"Senator had many enemies. So do we. And so do the people who have done this to us."  
  
Suddenly Adam froze, his expression almost stricken.  
  
"Adam?"  
  
Adam didn't stop at Emma's inquiry. He walked straight into his office saying, "I'm going to talk to Beverly."  
  
The door closed, and Emma turned to Jesse. "What is he trying to do?"  
  
Jesse leaned against the chair, looking tired. "If we're framed, and I don't see any other way to look at this, it has to be by someone with grudges on both the senator and us."  
  
"Genius, Sherlock," Brennan snapped. "Any second-grader can figure that out."  
  
Jesse continued, ignoring Brennan, "And we need help from inside right now, the help that Adam's source obviously can't give. But the enemies of the people who benefit the most from this assassination might want to help us figure out the truth for their good, assuming the people who do benefit the most from Senator Kline's death did frame us for it."  
  
"And assuming that these enemies of them are willing to help us, the mutants," Emma added.  
  
Jesse stared at her for a moment. "Yes. Assuming that."  
  
The three of them thought for a while.   
  
"Dammit," Brennan summarized their thought with one simple utterance.  
  
"Yeah," Jesse agreed, like that word said everything he wanted to say.  
  
The silence swirled around them, letting its presence known to them with chilling indifference.   
  
Emma embraced it, welcoming a break from all the emotions emanating from her colleagues in this room, every single one of them fierce and almost vehement in its intensity. But there were people who did not take kindly to silence, people who couldn't just sit and accept it.  
  
Like Brennan.  
  
"Why did you come after me?" he asked, abruptly turning his attention to Jesse.  
  
Jesse looked puzzled at Brennan's sudden anger. "What?"   
  
"You should've stayed with Emma and Shal. I could've handled the protesters myself. I didn't *ask* for your help."  
  
Immediately Jesse's mouth snapped shut, his expression turning hard, harder than his body when he massed.  
  
Emma could tell this was signaling trouble with a big T. She glared at Brennan. "Your comlink signal was all jumbled and we didn't know what was happening on your side. What were we supposed to do?"  
  
"I could've handled it by myself," Brennan repeated, none of the anger defused and with all the stubbornness added. "You should know that by now."   
  
Jesse said nothing. He was now looking at the computer screen, his back to them, and Emma could visibly see his shoulders stiffen. So this was how they dealt with pain. Brennan through anger, Jesse through his stiff grin that tucked away every trace of pain, and Emma...  
  
She didn't know what she did.  
  
She was definitely in no mood for such contemplation, nor had she any time for it. "Look, we're all angry and tired, Brennan. Think about what you're saying before you actually say them."  
  
Before Brennan could answer, Jesse spoke, his eyes intent on the screen, "Liam's in trouble."  
  
"What's wrong?" Emma asked, suddenly feeling the weight of the world. She absolutely could not handle any more problems right now.  
  
Jesse was already standing up, grabbing his jacket. "Don't know. Messaged me to meet him at McGary's, downtown. I have to go pick him up. Beep me if Adam finds out anything. I won't be long."  
  
Anger flashed at Brennan's eyes. "You're going out now? When Shal's like this?"  
  
"I'm hoping you're not suggesting that I don't care about Shalimar," Jesse said, his voice flat.   
  
Brennan said nothing, only staring back.  
  
Jesse's blue eyes were colder than the Arctic, and Emma had to look away.   
  
Jesse walked out, not once stopping on his track.   
  
"God," Emma let out her breath as soon as Jesse disappeared from their sight, "What is *wrong* with you?"  
  
"Don't start, Emma," Brennan's voice was cool as he glanced into the lab, looking at Shalimar with an unfathomable expression.  
  
That did nothing but fuel her anger. "Why didn't you snap at me? I was right there, *and* I'm a psionic, and even then I couldn't stop any of this from happening. Why don't you accuse me and blame me?"  
  
"Emma."  
  
"Don't 'Emma' me, don't you dare. I was *right there* and I couldn't do *anything*. It's entirely my fault, isn't it, according to your way of assigning blames."  
  
"No, it isn't. Emma--"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
Brennan said nothing, his eyes still on Shalimar.  
  
"Want me to answer it for you? Because I'm not Jesse, that's why. You can't just scream at me, because that role is reserved for him first. Adam's second, probably. Then me. My turn hasn't come yet."  
  
He glared at her. "Are you reading me? That it?"   
  
She thoroughly ignored him, "Be honest with your emotions, Brennan. You were always at least that, honest with your feelings. Don't back out from that now."  
  
"What are you saying?"   
  
"What do you think?"  
  
Suddenly all anger had disappeared from Brennan's expression; there was only exhaustion. "What am I thinking? What am I thinking? I don't know what I'm thinking." He turned away again, his shoulders sinking slowly. "The whole thing is so messed up."  
  
She couldn't agree more.  
  
"Dammit," Brennan mumbled to himself. A moment later, he picked up his jacket and turned away.  
  
"Brennan?"  
  
"I'm going after Jesse. Call us if anything's wrong, 'kay?"  
  
Sometimes she thought she could only reflect the emotions of others, never hers. She could lose herself in other emotions and never recover.  
  
She knew what others felt. She glanced at the disappearing shape of Brennan's back. She glanced at the lab infirmary, where Shalimar was asleep, blissfully unaware of the commotions outside. She glanced at the office, where the distraught Adam was making phone calls to get them out from this situation.   
  
She could tell, with more than ninety-five percent accuracy, what they were feeling.   
  
The question was, how much of them was hers.  
  
  
***  
  
  
General Sperling had nothing much going for him outside his office in the Department of Defense. He mostly assigned projects and called the shots without actually conducting the missions. That was how the Phased Vibration Generator that Adam had created had almost fallen into the use on innocent people some time ago. Emma looked through his profile, trying to find anything useful. The list of the possible allies and enemies, mostly politicians and military men, was long enough for her eyes to become blurry beyond sight, and she reached the point to suggest that maybe she should just go see them one by one, and read them. That would be faster than examining these profiles that gave out next to nothing.  
  
Adam almost smiled at her complaint. "This is the old-fashioned way of researching, Emma. This is what I do. Why don't you rest a bit? The others could help."  
  
"Bren's busy at Shal's bedside, as you already know. And Jesse is going over the system schematics with Liam, something about a glitch where it shouldn't be."  
  
At the mention of Liam, she felt both she and Adam pause for a bit. It wasn't that they didn't like Liam, because they did. She read nothing off from him. A little too eager, maybe, but that served to like him even more, reminding her of Jesse when she'd just become a member of the team. It was just that Liam's presence reminded her of something unpleasant--Jesse had thought about leaving them.  
  
She knew, instinctively, Jesse's mind hadn't changed about wanting to leave, but she felt almost relieved and glad that some good things did come out of Shalimar being incapacitated and the team making into the most-wanted list of the every police station. Jesse would not leave, not now, not like this. It just wasn't something he did.  
  
She didn't know why Adam would find Liam's presence uneasy, though, and like a bad habit, she peeked into his mind, only slightly.  
  
"You didn't stop him?" she asked, bewildered and angry as she recovered the things on the surface of his mind almost immediately.  
  
Adam didn't turn around from his workstation, his fingers still working across the keyboard. "You mean General Sperling? I did try to stop him from getting the PVG. It didn't work, did it?"  
  
She felt absolutely exasperated whenever Adam played dumb knowing exactly she wouldn't be sold on it. "You know he's not the one I'm talking about, Adam."  
  
"Emma," Adam warned. As to, please stop poking through my mind. As to, let's not talk about this now. As to, we have more important things to think about.  
  
"Oh, quit it, you and Brennan going all 'Emma' on me won't do a thing. You didn't stop Jesse. You knew you could. He won't leave if you stop him. You *know* that."  
  
Adam didn't turn around, but his fingers stopped moving. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I'm no longer sure if this is the best for him, Emma."  
  
There was no emotion in his voice, yet at the same time it sounded devastated, as if it was from a father who realized the truth a little too late and now everything was ruined.   
  
She felt like she couldn't get a word into his mind at this state, but she had to try, at least. "But you wanted to stop him. You *want* him here. Why don't you just say what you want when you know he wants to hear them?"  
  
Adam turned to look at her. "Why didn't you, Emma?  
  
The question wasn't meant to be cruel, but it stung. "I did. He didn't believe me."  
  
The problem was, she knew why he didn't.  
  
"What are you guys talking about?" a new voice interrupted them.  
  
When they turned around, startled, they saw Shalimar stood shakily at the entrance, supporting herself by leaning against the doorframe. She was still weak from whatever transformation she had gone through, attempting to adjust to life without her feral side, but now her eyes were unquestionably glowing lividly, very much reminiscent of her feral eyes.  
  
Which told Emma that Shalimar had heard everything.  
  
"What. Are. You. Saying," Shalimar repeated, her every word punctuated with anger.   
  
"If you heard everything, Shalimar, you don't have to ask," Adam answered calmly, earning a great respect from Emma.  
  
"Jesse was planning to leave," Shalimar said, and it wasn't a question. "And he didn't tell us."  
  
Well, he hadn't told all of them, but he certainly had told Adam and Emma. But Emma thought it would be wise not to remind Shal when she obviously knew this as well. She suddenly wondered where Brennan was. He should be here, Emma thought desperately, I don't even mind him kissing Shalimar right in front us passionately with all the surround sounds if it could stop her from asking us more questions.  
  
Sadly, Brennan continued to be no-show, and Emma and Adam had a very confrontational ex-feral in front of them, wanting answers.  
  
"I think you should let Jesse talk," Adam tried again, his voice still remarkably calm. "He deserves that much."  
  
Shalimar stood still now, her arms across her chest. She looked calm with this posture, but then again, her eyes were still sizzling. "Try again, Adam. What the hell? And why didn't *you* tell *us*?"  
  
Adam wasn't going to do this, Emma knew. Well, then. "His grandmother died," she offered to Shalimar, her voice carefully controlled.  
  
Shal looked at Adam and got the confirmation she wanted from his expression. Suddenly, something changed in her face, as a flash of memories went through her mind.  
  
"The Bible," Shalimar let the words out slowly, almost painfully. "It was a legacy from his grandmother?"  
  
Emma had no idea what they were talking about, but Adam answered simply, "Yes."  
  
"That was more than a week ago," Shal said, almost to herself. She closed her eyes briefly and Emma was almost afraid that she would fall into some sort of depression, something she couldn't afford in her condition right now. But Emma's worries were entirely unwarranted, because soon Shalimar bit her lips and proceeded to shout loudly, "Okay, that's it! I'm going to kick his ass, power or no power!"  
  
Emma was beginning to think that Shalimar was currently more pissed off at Jesse than at losing her feral side or being framed for murdering a senator. Well, at least it kept her in good spirits.  
  
"Gosh, what did Bren do this time?"  
  
Emma and Adam turned to the new occupant of the room who looked entirely unsuspecting and innocent. Shalimar didn't, keeping her eyes straight. Emma imagined steams coming out from her ears.  
  
"Um, Shal?" Jesse asked, all innocent and curious.  
  
"Think I should go look for...something," Adam said, gesturing the door and already moving away from the ground zero.  
  
"I'll help you look," Emma volunteered, and quickly, both of them left the room.  
  
As Emma closed the door behind her, she caught a glimpse of Jesse's expression. She thought it was like the one that was about to be shattered into a million little pieces.  
  
But she shook that thought away. She was only observing him; she didn't read him. Nothing came right from just observation. So it wasn't going to happen. Shal could change his mind completely. She would kick his ass and get him the answer, whatever it was.   
  
Or so Emma hoped.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Blue, everything was blue. The world trembled and quivered. The look that could shatter into a million pieces with a single touch. The eyes with gray and indigo swirls that stormed inside. They told the truth. They couldn't lie. They couldn't pretend.  
  
Oh, the lies they told. The lies.  
  
"Jesse--" Emma couldn't finish, her hand stopping in midair.  
  
Jesse stopped on his track and turned halfway. He smiled faintly, his smile tucking away so many things inside. Again.  
  
"Someone told me that beauty of the world and the tragedy of existence is that one needs another to live," he said. At her apparent confusion, he added, "You see, all bodies in universe are constantly drifting apart, and if you don't want to drift apart, you need something else with gravity to cling to. It's not exactly true, astrophysics wise, but I think I'm inclined to agree to the sentiment."  
  
He was drowning. He was thinking of the forty days of rain engulfing everything around him in the terrible, unforgiving blue. Again.  
  
He was drowning in the lies that they told him, the things they didn't say.  
  
The drain with the incredible thirst. It consumed her, telling her that she, too, had been drowning all along, but in her own lies.  
  
And she longed for it to stop.   
  
She wanted silence.  
  
"Bye Emma," he said. Like a second thought, he came back and stood in front of her, kissed her on the cheek.  
  
She almost choked at the finality of the gesture, but she couldn't say a word. The words.  
  
Jesse, we need you.  
  
The words died on her lips.  
  
After Jesse left and before the men with the special suits and the blazing guns found their Sanctuary, she realized that they had been all true, that she could've said the words. She could have, but didn't. Because, you see, with words came responsibilities.   
  
Just thoughts were meaningless. With words came responsibilities.  
  
After Jesse left and before the men with the special suits and the blazing guns found their Sanctuary, she realized they were all drowning.  
  
  
  
***  
Now the sirens have a still more fatal weapon  
than their song, namely their silence...  
Someone might possibly have escaped from their singing;  
but from their silence, certainly never.  
-Franz Kafka, the Parables.  
***  
  
  
"They're here," Emma tells Brennan, even before the sound of the footsteps outside the safe house begins to be heard. "They know we're in here."  
  
How they know this is the question that they both want answers for, but it's likely that they won't get any.  
  
Brennan stays still for a second, his jaw still stiff and hand still bleeding, before he springs into action. He supports Adam's limp body up. He begins, "Emma, we-"  
  
She cuts him off, "There are too many. It's not gonna work."  
  
"I didn't tell you anything yet," Brennan says, too puzzled to be angry.  
  
"You didn't have to."  
  
"Emma--"  
  
Sometimes she thinks she can only reflect the emotions of others, never hers. She can lose herself in other emotions and never recover.  
  
Is that what she is? A mere reflection, an automatic response to others' emotions? Never hers?  
  
"Brennan, why are you here?"  
  
He blinks. "What?"  
  
"Why are you in the team? Why are you a part of Mutant X?"  
  
"Emma, this is hardly the time--"  
  
"Then when is?"  
  
He looks at her and her expression, and his dismayed look softens. "Because this is the one thing I've done in my life that might mean something."  
  
She nods, her eyes still on the door. She knows exactly what he feels, what he thinks, from his words. "Are you in love with Shalimar?"  
  
At this particular question, Brennan takes a longer time to answer, "Maybe."  
  
The word 'maybe' circles back to her a few times. That is an honest enough answer, she thinks, for Brennan.  
  
"Emma," he calls out, hesitantly, her name a question.  
  
"I'm glad we had this talk," she tells him, truthfully.  
  
She might have been afraid of the power she has, hiding behind the silence that the words have left. But now she knows what she wants, what she has to do, and hiding isn't going to cut it. She needs words.  
  
"I'm going to blow their brains out. Fry them all. I'll have to knock you out first, though, since I think you'd want yours intact. Think Adam would be okay, already in a coma and all."  
  
She wants them all back. If what it takes is to blow out the brains of some bad soldiers with her power, then so be it. She won't lose them. She won't.  
  
After the silence, after the lies, there is only the loneliness. This is a profound loneliness that empties the soul of her being, and she wants them all back, the whirlwind of emotions. She wants Adam back, Jesse and Shalimar. Brennan, who is here with her but isn't, not really.  
  
Truly, she is afraid. Afraid that she might not succeed. Afraid she might not come back from the aftermath. Afraid she can't have them all back. Her friends.  
  
And she is glad, because this is the real fear she feels. Her fear.  
  
All hers. Hers alone.  
  
  
  
  
END Part I  
Next up, Part II: Creation Myth (Jesse).  
(Disjuncture in the structure of this story is intentional, and that's why there are four more parts to go. Whew, four more. Aspirin needed.) 


	2. Creation Myth

Thank you for the great feedback, everyone. It was much, much better than the aspirin. ;)  
  
The same disclaimer applies, and it's still freakishly long.  
SPOILERS for this part: Blood Ties and Signs from Above.  
  
***  
II. CREATION MYTH. (Jesse)  
***  
  
  
  
The gate of the mansion he hasn't seen for seven years stares back at him with all of its imposing grace.  
  
I'm not a freak.  
  
It is an automated response, triggered by what is in front of him now. He is not a freak. Not a freak.   
  
Okay.  
  
All these years, it still comes down to one thing. Jesse would laugh if he could, but he doesn't feel like laughing. In fact, he doesn't feel like doing anything at all. Doesn't feel like standing here like this. Doesn't feel like breathing. Thinking. And thinking. And mostly he doesn't feel like walking through this gate.  
  
He collects life, of its disappointment, regret, and love, always love. He collects the moments of truths like a kid holding onto his treasure box and its content that would look like junks to anyone else but him. A broken seashell for a memory, a jaded rock for another, a fading photograph burning into reminiscence. All this, because he knows these moments can be taken away from him any second, any moment. Fate is fickle and unkind and wretched.   
  
At the end of the gate are the people he has to call his family, what's left of them, and some of the memories he has kept in his precious box. But memories don't hold him together any more.  
  
Turning around, he slips into the convertible and drives away. He's not ready. Not after two days of wandering. He isn't sure if he'll ever be ready, but surely the moment isn't now.   
  
He drives through the nearest downtown, the streets that shine with the last glimmering twilight. He used to love this place, for all of its darkness and pain that don't belong to him and shame him. The picture of poverty is stark with the juxtaposition against the gate he cannot enter, and he is trying hard not to remember why he has left in the first place.  
  
It is suddenly hard to breathe. He parks at the first parking space he sees and gets out from the car. Breathing in, breathing out. It doesn't help much. It is as if the world is submerged in the water and no matter what he does, it'll drag him down to its darkest pit.  
  
It's the flood, he thinks. The flood has come.  
  
"You're in my light."  
  
He turns to the source of the voice. A man, squatting on the filthiest corner of the street, is counting cigarette butts on the ground around him.   
  
With a slow drawl, the man spits, "You're in my light. Sit down or get out."  
  
The sun is slowly sinking and there is not much light to speak of. For no apparent reason, Jesse is intrigued. "Actually, I don't think I want to do either."  
  
The man stares at him for a second before shrugging. "Suit yourself."  
  
The man goes back to counting the seemingly endless amount of cigarette butts. Jesse tries to imagine just how long the man has to have stayed here and smoked to leave this much of evidence for it.  
  
Jesse squats down beside him. "May I?" he gestures toward an intact cigarette pack -- or something that looks like it -- on the ground in front of them.  
  
If he says no, you will get up and leave, Jesse tells himself. You'll go back and enter that gate.  
  
And if he says yes?  
  
He hasn't really decided the answer to that question when the man, giving him a look of pure annoyance, hands Jesse the pack himself. "Just one," the man warns.  
  
This is rather unexpected, and Jesse is no longer sure about this. He doesn't smoke and he isn't about to start, but bravely he takes out one from the pack.   
  
The man lights it for Jesse with an already used-up match. Jesse ventures, rather doubtfully, and the tacky smoke soon fills his lungs. He coughs, hard.   
  
The homeless man flashes a crooked smile. "Virgin lungs."  
  
Jesse coughs a few more times before getting a hold of himself. He would prefer fighting more GSA goons than this. "Wow, this stuff is bad."  
  
Apparently taking that as a criticism, the man grumbles, "Yeah well, we all love what we shouldn't, don't we?"  
  
He thinks about the cigarette butts on the ground that can possibly pile up like a small hill, the large metallic gate that he doesn't want to enter, and the people he shouldn't love but does.  
  
"Yeah," Jesse agrees. "We do."  
  
The brown eyes under the hunting cap that must have been to every corner of underground sewage system regard him keenly for the first time. "What's your deal?"  
  
He thinks about replying but there is no point when he doesn't know the answer. He glances at a Bar & Grill across the street, and thinks about how he doesn't want this. This. Going back. Entering that gate when a man could sit here counting cigarettes and perpetually starving. This everything. "I'm thinking of buying myself dinner," he says. "Fries, burgers, the whole deal."  
  
"With gravy?" the man asks, trying really hard look uninterested.  
  
"If you want. On me, for the smoke."  
  
The man thinks about it for a second, and obviously deciding that Jesse doesn't look like a psychotic serial killer (or that the risk doesn't outweigh the opportunity of a free meal), takes his offered hand and follows him up.  
  
When they enter the bar with the jukebox, the wooden floors, and everything else that is synonymous with greasy, a little bell rings, and people inside turn to look at them instead of the TV that is nosily turning out words and music. Jesse thoroughly ignores the glances they receive and goes straight toward the bar. Orders two special plates with extra-gravy on them.  
  
"What's your name, kid?" the man asks while devouring a meaty burger and gravy-dipped fries and swallowing a bottle of Budweiser.  
  
Jesse doesn't feel like eating, especially because watching this man eating like he hasn't touched food for weeks should make any man feel guilty about actually having warm meals before. Jesse pushes his untouched plate toward the man. "Jesse," he answers.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
The man is still not looking at Jesse, but the single word is spoken with enough meaning behind it. That single word has more truths than anything he has heard in a long time.  
  
He made no proper goodbyes except to Emma, who didn't know what to say. She has eyes that make it impossible for anyone to see through, her dark eyes and her serious expressions that are so different from the ones that belong to the girl they rescued a long time ago. She reads minds, yet she couldn't tell him. No one did.  
  
Emma who doesn't know what to say and Brennan who doesn't know what he wants. Adam, who he cannot read, and Shal, who he cannot love nor hate. The memories that no longer hold him together.  
  
He leans against the chair, eyes closed. The thought always tires him.  
  
With his eyes closed, he begins to hear something else other than the chatters and loud noises inside the bar, a professional, impersonal voice narrating.  
  
His eyes snap open and he turns to the TV screen. Flashes of images. Senator Kline. The blood in his room. Cuts to the official investigative reports. Suspects. Official. Arrest warrant. Adam. Adam.   
  
Adam.  
  
Not just Adam. There are rather hideous pictures of everyone. Brennan. Shal. Emma. And his.  
  
A very hideous picture of his.  
  
He stares at his own image for a long moment. It is no longer recognizable, not any more, not to him anyway. But maybe there are still some resemblances between him and the picture him, because, he soon realizes, everyone in the bar is now staring at him.  
  
The man sitting beside him has also seen the TV, but he only turns his attention back to his plate.   
  
"Why don't you ask?" Jesse asks him, knowing every other eye in this place is on him right now.  
  
"Does it matter what I think?"  
  
He's not sure. "Maybe."  
  
"Seems like you and your friends are in trouble, that's what I think. Seems like we all love what we shouldn't, but what does that matter, that's what I think. I'm gonna smoke after this so you better pay for these before you walk out, that's what I think."  
  
I'm breathing, Jesse realizes, suddenly. Maybe, for the first time since he left, he is breathing.   
  
The water is draining out from the world, disappearing, and the blue no longer lingers, and he can breathe.  
  
He pays for the meals and stands up. No one stops him. He takes in the atmosphere, the sepia-colored images of this bar, the homeless man who might have saved his life. Another addition to his treasure box.  
  
He has built his life around the memories. Memories that no longer hold him together.  
  
But maybe they're not that important any more.  
  
  
  
***  
The Lord said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and all your household; for you alone in this generation have I found to be righteous."  
-Genesis 7:1  
***  
  
  
  
For Jesse Kilmartin, the prelude to the flood started in a morning that was like any other morning, the peace before the storm.   
  
He woke up with a light, musical hum of the computer system that echoed through the walls of the automated Sanctuary. Today he was allowed to miss the morning exercise that usually left him with severe or light bruises, depending on the sparring partner and very severely on Shal's mood. Skipping breakfast, he went straight to a relatively peaceful aspect of his life: regular scanning for related information on any emergence of New Mutants. Peaceful, because they were not kicking some GSA ass at the moment, no loose mutants with uncontrollable power at their bay, threatening to destroy all.  
  
Jesse clicked away, scanning and searching. The system had been giving him errors for the past few days, and he was occupying himself with getting to the bottom of this problem when he felt a sudden appearance of soundless presence behind him. He sighed--yes, it was like any other morning. "How long?" he asked begrudgingly.  
  
From the sparkling blonde to the clicking high heels that defied their purpose and made no noise whatsoever, Shalimar was all sunny. Irritatingly so. "Five seconds," she stated smugly. "Already kicked your butt several times and over."  
  
"Five seconds? Can't be." Was he getting actually slower? That was a scary prospect. Shal with her feral movements was hard to detect when caught unguarded. He'd gotten as quick as a second, but never more than four. It really didn't help that Brennan never got over two seconds, and there was no fooling with Emma.  
  
Shal made a dismissive hand gesture, her eyes warm. "Still early in the morning. You were immersed in work. *And* you are still recovering, you know. Your leg feeling okay?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Jesse--"  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"So you say."  
  
"So I say."  
  
Shal immediately took on the 'older sister scolding the troublemaker kid brother' look that he wasn't overly fond of. "And what would Adam say?"  
  
"He--"  
  
"He would remind Jesse very gently," a teasing voice joined the conversation before Jesse could reply, "that he needs to take it easy, and the slower reflex time is to be expected."  
  
Adam was all grin, but the stern look and the worrying glint in his eyes were hard to ignore. Jesse tried, nonetheless, "C'mon, guys. If I take it any easier, I would be wrestling with pillows on bed all day."  
  
"If we had it our way, you'd be tied to the bed," Shal spoke lightly as a joke, but her hand was firm on his shoulder. "You're not made of steel, Jesse. And I don't appreciate you playing a human shield for us."  
  
Ah, but he was supposed to be. That was what he was for, after all. "So," Jesse said loudly, "two of the people we sent underground failed to contact us for the regular checkup yesterday. Haven't got anything from the safehouse yet. Should we go check it out? And there's also some sort of a glitch in the system and it keeps giving me this error. I think I'll take a look with Liam today when he comes over."  
  
They were all aware of his attempt to change topic, but they let him get away with it. They had worked too long, too hard, together to wastes unnecessary words like 'Don't ever do that again,' or, 'Careful the next time.' They all knew he would do his desperate best not to make the same mistake again.  
  
"Jesse, before we get into that," Adam handed him a brown parcel, his expression oddly solemn, "this came for you today."  
  
Jesse took the box, weighing it, and frowned. A parcel? Through what route?  
  
Adam nodded at him, and taking it as a sign that he had already taken the necessary precaution, Jesse gingerly opened it. The parcel, to his complete surprise, revealed a heavy leather-bound book that smelled of the dusty library and felt like the time itself.  
  
"What is it?" Shal asked, peering over his shoulder to take a look.   
  
Jesse stared at the cover, and when he registered what it said, leaned back against the chair, eyes shut. He knew what this meant. What it had to mean.  
  
"A Bible."  
  
  
***  
  
  
On his eighth birthday, his grandmother gave him a book, heavy and thick, with a great worn-out reddish leather cover and golden streaks that liberally decorated the bookends. Overall, doubtlessly expensive and doubtlessly boring, especially to the eye of a boy who was only eager to play with new computer gadgets.  
  
He wrinkled his nose and rather sulkily noted that it was merely a book, not the promised turbo exo-scanner.  
  
"It's not *a* book," his grandmother chided him, "It's *the* Book."  
  
His grandmother took a joy in her oldest grandson and had been the only company of his when he was a child. His grandfather was of an old-money lineage whose legacy consisted of constant complaints on the contemporary society that no longer held any kind of value for him, and a sudden heart attack to remember. Jesse's mother was a social butterfly, whose kisses on his cheek were ever-brief and automatic, always given to him in between leaving to or coming from various parties that never ended. His father left his son top-notch technologies and computer gadgets to play with and never came home while he played his own spy games, unsuccessfully and all in deception, and insisted his son to call him by his name, Noah.  
  
Later, much later after he grew up, Jesse imagined a conversation. He would regularly visit his grandmother but would not tell her that her mysterious government agent son had gone rogue, that Jesse himself had traced his father back to Argentina doing God-Knows-What. He wouldn't tell her that Noah had betrayed his son's trust, because a father was always a father and blood was blood, whether he liked it or not. He would only tell her that her oldest son came to visit, and he looked great.  
  
His grandmother would digest the information and, after a long while, answer only with, "I want great-grandkids."  
  
Jesse would choke on the milk tea he would sip at her insistence. "You've got to be kidding me, Grandma. I'm still--"  
  
"Old enough to give me a few healthy great-grandkids named Krissy, Robin, and Jesse the second."  
  
The idea itself would be enough to horrify him for nights to come and scare him more than Genomex coming after him with nuclear bombs, and having accomplished this, his grandmother would proceed to offer him more cookies and get him to read her favorite parts of the Bible.   
  
Creation myth, any myth, was always the same, a birth of the tragedy that was common enough to spread through people's psyche yet carefully unconcerned with its effects. So if in the beginning there was nothingness, something had to come along. By some miraculous -- Big Bang or God or Yahweh -- power, there came 'something'. That something led to gas nebulae and proto stars and planets ("There would be light.") and Sun and Earth, and little itsy bitsy mammals called Human Sapiens Sapiens living on it ("And He found it very good.").   
  
But men, like an errand child who wanted all the candies in the store, didn't find it very good. The fire of Prometheus wasn't enough. The world given to them by God to cultivate wasn't enough. They succumbed to the God-like power at the first glance of chance. And these totally unintelligent beings, greedy and arrogant and ignorant, decided to play God.   
  
So, on the eighth day, men created men. The freaks of the nature. Thus began the tragedy.  
  
Of course, Grandma wouldn't hear this part. In fact, she would never hear that Jesse Kilmartin was a product of men playing God. She would forever think of him as a boy who enjoyed the story and believed his dad to bring on the Ark that would save the mankind, her adoring only grandson. Not a freak of nature who had to walk out from the household, never to be seen back, never to belong.  
  
Jesse had left her gift when he'd left home.  
  
It turned out that Jesse was on board of an ark, but not Noah's. He was with Adam, the first man in a different sense, in this refugee for the freaks of nature.  
  
They had been waiting for the inevitable flood.  
  
And when the Bible arrived, the storm clouds were marching past on the horizon.   
  
  
***  
  
  
Stars shone brightly that night, the moon-washed shore glittering with brilliance. Another moment for his treasure box, more precious because Jesse wasn't sure how long this would last, how long he could last.  
  
Liam mindlessly picked at the grass around him, obviously not concentrating on the molecular structure regeneration. Jesse leaned back, following Liam's example and lying down on the grass with his arm as a pillow. On this hill, on his favorite hiding spot against the rock mountain of the Sanctuary, they could watch the waves of the ocean tiding in and out on the shore, and the night sky seemed close enough to grasp.  
  
"I like them," Liam said, one hand reaching out to the sky.  
  
"The stars?"   
  
"Yeah. How they're just there, constant, but not really, because actually the universe is expanding, and all bodies in universe are continuously drifting apart."  
  
The theory was from the basic astronomy, Jesse remembered. "The Hubble Law? Didn't know you were an amateur astronomer."  
  
Liam shrugged. "It's like life. Unless you have something to cling to, like something massive with gravity, you drift even farther apart."  
  
Well, it wasn't true, not technically. No matter how massive the body, it was supposed to drift apart as the universe expanded, and there was no way around this fate for every single object in this universe. But Jesse didn't have the heart to correct Liam and his sentiment.   
  
"The beauty of the world and the tragedy of the existence is one needs another to live, to cling to?" Jesse summarized Liam's thoughts with his own. "Cool philosophy."  
  
"Of course you knew all that, right?" Liam said, sheepishly turning to him. "You know lots of things."  
  
"Nope, I just learned from you," Jesse lied.  
  
Liam grinned, half shy, half proud. He seemed to think Jesse was a big brother who knew everything. Which of course didn't make Jesse feel bad. At all.  
  
"Where are we exactly anyway? Sanctuary?" Liam asked, his eyes on the dark ocean.  
  
"Sorry, secret." Even though Jesse felt this was ridiculous to keep Liam in dark of their location when he had been coming over practically everyday for training, but protocol was protocol.   
  
Liam nodded, not offended. His hand continued to grasp at the grass. "Did Jeff and Miriam contact you yet?"   
  
"No." And Jesse was starting to get worried. They were recent additions to the underground, and they had failed to let him know how they were doing. They were never this irresponsible.  
  
"Maybe they've, you know, jumped off the wagon, and into the sack. Together. You know how they were looking at each other."  
  
Jesse almost smiled.  
  
"Do you have a girlfriend?" Liam asked, out of blue.  
  
The question inevitably brought up a dark image of a smiling face. Amanda, her dark hair and dark eyes, all the allusions to her fierce passion for life. Around her, he had felt that he could love life as much as she did, appreciate the life he didn't have to fight for to live in. The life granted to every being. Just to be happy.  
  
"Had," Jesse answered after a long moment. "She didn't want to be a part of this world. But it came after her anyway."  
  
Liam stopped playing with grass. "Whatcha mean? She...gone? Like, dead?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
"Wow--I mean, sorry. That sucks."   
  
What else was there to say? "Yeah."  
  
Liam seemed to have read his mood. "Sometimes life sucks. So meaninglessly boring. Meaningless, period. It's like...ever tried phasing into the water?"  
  
"Once," and it wasn't a pleasant memory. Blue had been everywhere, and it was a shattering, lonely feeling. "I know what you mean."  
  
"I did, too. A few times. Tried every single thing that seemed dangerous."  
  
This boy, too, was suffering from the perpetual loneliness. One foster home to another, a petty thief, a slightly less elegant version of Brennan's past life. Only Brennan and Liam hated each other's guts from the moment Brennan caught Liam stealing his wallet using the molecular ability a few weeks before.  
  
"C'mere," Jesse ruffled Liam's disheveled brown hair, trying to sound confident. "No one is an island, Liam."  
  
"If you say so," Liam shrugged, clearly not believing it.  
  
Jesse didn't either.  
  
Liam stopped pulling off the grass with his hands. Instead, with a single touch, he revived a dying flower with a cut stem. It bloomed again, slowly yet distinctly. It was beautiful.  
  
Jesse had seen Liam's this particular power a few times before, but every time he marveled at its magic. It was a power of creation, not of destruction. Not like his. Not really.  
  
He thought of the Bible, and the law of the universe. The beauty of the universe and the tragedy of the existence. They needed one another to hold on to.  
  
But, see, all bodies in universe were constantly drifting apart. No fate could avoid it.  
  
Jesse pushed himself up. " Come on, Liam. Let's get inside."  
  
Liam looked disappointed to leave. He grumbled, "What's the hurry?"  
  
Jesse thought Liam would do well in the team. And even make a good foil against Brennan and annoy him to no end. The thought almost made Jesse smile. Almost.  
  
"I have something to tell Adam."   
  
  
***  
  
  
He had shaved as a way of goodbye, and now his hair needed a cut. He glared at himself on the mirror, and looked down doubtfully at a pair of scissors.   
  
"*What* are you doing?"  
  
Shalimar was standing at his doorway with an amused grin, her arms crossed, watching his vain effort not to cut off a chunk of his own hair.  
  
He sighed dramatically. "Need to look presentable for the bodyguard duty, remember?"  
  
"Didn't know you took that MiB business so seriously. You know, maybe some good things *are* coming out from this mission, actually getting you to shave and all."  
  
"If you're not gonna help--" he made a threatening gesture with the scissors.  
  
Shal burst into laughter. "Alright, alright, but it's gonna cost ya."  
  
"Name it."  
  
A mischievous smile. "Later. Think you can handle it?"   
  
Jesse looked at himself on the mirror once again, then the scissors. "Think I don't have any choice."  
  
"A good answer." Shal suppressed the obvious laughter again and immediately went to work, coming around to stand behind him. She stopped to stare at his shoulders. "Sometimes I forget you're taller than I am."  
  
"I've always been taller than you."  
  
"Hah, in your dreams."  
  
"Nope, in my dreams, you're like this giant--"  
  
"Are you, like, even aware that I'm about to cut your hair using very sharp tools?"  
  
"--and a very beautiful one at that."  
  
"Nice save. I'll buy it."  
  
"Shal."  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"Are you happy?"  
  
Her hands that were reaching for a clean towel to cover his shoulders stopped in midair. She probably would have answered with 'Of course, whatcha talking about?' or something akin to that, a meaningless answer. But she saw his expression reflected back in the mirror. She knew what he was talking about.  
  
Her expression turned somber. "Yeah," she said, "I think I am."  
  
He pushed back every emotion that rushed to surface because he didn't trust any of it. "Good," he said, more to himself than anyone else. "Good."  
  
She studied his face, her eyes infinitely affectionate. "Is that what got you down lately, worrying about me and Brennan? You know you don't have to."  
  
"I know now," he said, smiling like a reassured brother.  
  
She doesn't remember, he thought. She never did.  
  
It was like drowning, this sinking feeling. It was like unfolding a piece of memory he had held clutched in his fist for all these years and finding it shattered. It was like a cup of his favorite coffee that had lost its steam and left him with no consolation. Nothing left.  
  
There was no regret.  
  
A few minutes later, his hair was short again. When he examined himself on the mirror, he thought his hair had been short like this before, when he left his home years ago.  
  
Somehow, it was appropriate.  
  
  
***  
  
  
The good news was, her coma state didn't last longer than a few hours, one of the longest few hours in his life. The bad news was, with or without the feral side, Shalimar always dealt with panic and confusion with the standard feral response -- anger.  
  
"Why don't I remember anything? Why can't I?"  
  
"Look, it's okay, it's all right," Brennan said, his hand on hers and trying as desperately as he possibly could to get her to lie down again.  
  
Shalimar didn't even try to struggle with the rage threatening to erupt with her every gesture. "No, it's *not* all right! For all we know, I could've been the one who killed the senator!"  
  
Jesse watched Brennan's completely ineffective attempt to soothe her from the doorway. He thought he had no right to interrupt the two of them. Because Jesse could only be grateful that she turned out to be all right, and that was all that mattered.   
  
As all right as she could be.  
  
This was useless. Jesse sighed. "Shal, we all know it wasn't you."  
  
Her eyes, strange without her golden glint, turned to him. Hopefully, desperately, and lividly burning. "How?"  
  
"Because we do."  
  
She considered his firm answer, considered his expression, and sat down on the infirmary bed again. Anger had dissipated from her completely and there was now embarrassment. "I know. I know. Sorry I snapped."  
  
Brennan couldn't hide the relieved expression from his face. "Look, Shal, it'll come back to you. It will. Right, Adam?"  
  
Adam, standing behind Jesse, nodded with an encouraging smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Of course it will. Shalimar, you'll be fine. Just be sure to rest for now."  
  
Adam gave Jesse and Emma a look, and the three of them left the room, leaving the couple alone. Jesse thought he could hear the soft murmurs exchanged behind him.  
  
He smiled, weary. This was the only role he was allowed. To be grateful that she was all right.  
  
"Adam, how *did* Senator Kline die?" Emma asked, all-business, her rigid expression obviously hinting her effort to push away all sorts of dark emotions she might feel from everywhere. "There was...so much blood."  
  
Adam led them to the next door lab and stood in front of the screen, his eyes suddenly looking more tired than ever. "Some of his cells, and every single one from important organs, were completely obliterated. I don't see how that's possible."  
  
"A new type of weapon, maybe?" Jesse suggested, looking at the photos on screen. Remembering how his heart almost stopped at Emma's scream. At Shal's cold body, closed eyes. The blood. How he felt like the sky had already shattered and the storms on the horizon had tided in with all of their frightening might and he could not stop it. Any of it.  
  
She was all right now. All that mattered.  
  
"If it was, it didn't use the projectile weapon or anything resembling gunpoint," Adam told them. "It destroyed the organs of his body simultaneously, at once."  
  
Something about this analysis didn't seem right, almost too familiar, but nothing seemed right at this point. Jesse turned to see, really see, Adam. "You look tired. Adam, Shal's okay for now. Maybe you should rest."  
  
Emma backed him up, "Jesse's right. I'll see what I can find from the coroner's preliminary report and we'll keep working on this. You should sleep for a bit."  
  
As expected, Adam shook his head. "Out of question. Emma, I need you to look into the list of Kline's enemies again, see if any of this matches."  
  
"I'm on it," Emma nodded and quickly left.   
  
"Jesse, look into the database and see if this style of assassination has ever taken place before."  
  
Jesse nodded as an answer, but his eyes were on Adam. The lines in Adam's face were becoming more prominent, and he wondered just how quickly their leader had aged the last few days. Wondered how much of it was his doing. "I'm sorry about Senator Kline," he offered quietly, "I know he was your friend."  
  
Adam didn't turn around. His eyes were still on his computer screen when he suddenly said, "Kevin Killmartin called an hour ago."  
  
Jesse stopped. It took a bit of time for him to conjure up a calm voice, "I didn't know my uncle knew our number. If he even knew where I've been all these years. What a surprise."  
  
"Jesse, the funeral--"  
  
"Was today and I couldn't make it. My grandmother is already gone. Shal isn't."  
  
"There are other members of your family, waiting for you."  
  
What was Adam telling him? Jesse didn't understand. Yes, he had been ready to leave before, at least for a few days to attend the funeral, to take care of the estate and to take time to think where to go from there. Now Shal was hurt and everything was changed and different and confusing and frightening and--Adam couldn't possibly expect Jesse to leave now, like this, right? Adam wouldn't think Jesse would leave them like this. He wouldn't.   
  
"I'm sure my uncle is eagerly waiting for me to hand off my share of the estate to him," Jesse answered, carefully hiding resentment that wanted to surface. "I'm certain he wouldn't mind waiting a little bit more."  
  
Adam turned around to face him, finally. There was nothing in his expression. "If there is a chance of reconciliation with your family, you should take that chance."  
  
"Adam, why are you in such a hurry to get rid of me?" Jesse asked lightly, jokingly, but it was never a joke and they both knew it.  
  
Adam sighed, and the lines on his face became more visible. "Jesse, I'm only saying this recent...situation and the rest of us shouldn't be the reasons for you to stay. If you want to go, you should. You have a choice."  
  
It seems like, Jesse thought, everyone in this world knows precisely how to break one's heart except me.  
  
"Is that what you really think?" Jesse asked flatly.  
  
"I--" Adam paused. Maybe there was a hint of hesitation, maybe there wasn't. Adam's eyes turned resolute again. "Yes."  
  
So there it was. Had he wanted Adam to stop him? Beg him not to go? Take this as a chance to get him to stay and say nothing of his previous decision to leave? Had he wanted all these?  
  
But why? Had he not known any of his moments, anything that was good to him and good for him, could be taken away from him?  
  
Jesse went back to work without a word.  
  
  
***  
  
  
The tight police grid everywhere around the McGary's, and Brennan declared, "Okay, this outing is now officially teetering on dangerous if not suicidal."  
  
Jesse pushed back annoyance to the very edge of his mind. It took some effort. A lot of effort. "I didn't ask you to come along."  
  
Brennan gave him a broad smile. "All the more reason for me to stick around."  
  
'I can take care of myself' lacked originality as a snappy reply. 'Since when do you care?' would sound stupid if not hollow. 'Get lost' was just mean, and Jesse Kilmartin didn't do mean, not even now. In the end, he ended up saying, "You want back or front?"  
  
"Backdoor, and Jesse," Brennan fidgeted with his feet for a second before resuming with a quick, unnecessary, "Thanks for looking out for me, man. Didn't meant to, you know, snap. It's just...looking at Shal like that. Know what I mean?"  
  
Yes, and that was the problem, wasn't it? "Yeah, I know," he said, after a moment. "Don't worry about it."  
  
Brennan disappeared into the dark alley after giving him a quick nod. Jesse tightened the dark coat around his body and walked across the street. Nodding at the usher at the entrance, he walked in. The McGary's, the epitome of booze and raves and all that came with the impulsiveness the allusion of youth offered, was fairly subdued this early in the evening. Like a wake that was yet to begin.  
  
A wake. Where he was supposed to be now.  
  
The last time he'd seen his grandmother, she was behind her business desk, her gray hair styled impeccably and her gray suit in place instead of her smile that had once been benign and thawed. He would not think of this again.  
  
On the other end of the spectrum, someone was sleeping at the infirmary bed right now, suffering uneasy dreams.   
  
Adam was wrong. It was never Jesse's choice to make. It never had been.  
  
He could not leave.  
  
The music inside the McGary's was loud enough for him to forget the memories, at least for a moment, and he quickly scanned the place for the familiar brown hair among the dancing crowd and the intoxicating sensation of disarray.  
  
Not seeing Liam anywhere, Jesse went straight to the bar. He didn't know tonight's bartender, so he prepared a twenty bucks. "I'm looking for Liam. Twenty-three, brown hair, hazel eyes?"  
  
The bartender chortled. "Look, pal, look around. How many guys fitting that description do you think are here tonight?"  
  
It was still early, and there were not so many customers to keep track of. He slipped another twenty across the bar. "But I'm *sure* you have a great memory."  
  
The bartender looked at the bill once. "Well, I *might* have seen a guy fitting that description. Might. Might not. See, I might be developing a memory problem."  
  
Before Jesse could say anything, Brennan was at his side at once. "Well, then, let me jog it a bit." Brennan grabbed the bartender by his shoulders and dragged him up above the counter. "How is your memory problem now?"  
  
"Backroom, 4th one on the left!" the bartender screamed immediately, causing half of the club population to turn to stare at them. Jesse strained to smile back broadly in the manner of 'Nothing to look, folks. Just a friendly banter or two'.  
  
Brennan lowered down the bartender and made a grand gesture of brushing off dust. "See, easily fixed."   
  
"Thanks." Jesse smiled sweetly at the bartender who was now trying hard to breathe, and grabbed the money he'd paid the man before. As they walked toward the backdoor, he glared at Brennan. "Ever heard of subtlety?"  
  
"Nah. Not my thing."  
  
"Of course not."  
  
When they opened the door leading to backrooms, Jesse felt Brennan bristle slightly. He, too, felt something was amiss. Granted, it was still early, but why wasn't there anyone--  
  
The question was answered when strong hands grabbed him from behind and Brennan was picked up and tossed aside. Five, six men in unmarked uniforms emerged from the dark corners and crowded the narrow corridor they were in.  
  
Jesse phased immediately and rolled out from the tight grip. Brennan electrocuted the two in front of them.   
  
"Here we go again," Brennan muttered as he straightened up into a fighting position. Jesse thought that Brennan might even be enjoying this, another target practice of a sort for the elemental who was always itching for some action.  
  
It did turn out a little different from other regular target practice, however.  
  
They barely had any chance to counterattack when the rest of the men were onto Brennan right away, and two of them came after Jesse. He massed once to deflect an attack, but as soon as he de-massed, another began to choke Jesse, perfectly coordinated. It was as if... as if they knew Jesse's power.  
  
Before Jesse could figure out the implication of this between trying to get out and trying to breathe, Brennan basically fried everyone on his way and the man holding Jesse.  
  
"You okay?" Brennan helped him up.  
  
God, he felt sore all over, and maybe slightly envious of Brennan who could use his power for long-range attacks. "Yeah, thanks. These guys..."  
  
"Strong. Way too strong," Brennan agreed quickly, alarmed. He glanced at the unmarked uniforms. "Military. Special Ops, maybe."  
  
Jesse didn't like this. Didn't like this at all. He rushed to the 4th room and opened the door.  
  
Liam was knocked out in the middle of it.  
  
"Liam!" Not dead, not dead. Please. Jesse felt a strong pulse underneath his fingertip pressed under Liam's neck. Thank God. Not dead.  
  
Liam's eyes fluttered open. As soon as recognition returned to his eyes, he sat up, groaning. "God, what the hell happened?"  
  
"You tell us," Brennan crossed his arms, standing behind Jesse, "Why did you ask Jesse to meet you here?"  
  
"Jeff and Miriam called. They didn't show up. *They* showed up instead." Liam pointed at the bodies outside. "Jesus, they were quick. Before I could phase out, they were onto me. Just like that."  
  
Jesse let the new information sink in. Was this related to Senator Kline's assassination? It had to be. And these men knew exactly what to expect from them.  
  
Somehow, Jesse didn't think they'd seen the last of them.  
  
"What do you think happened to Jeff and Miriam?" Liam asked, angry and confused and concerned.  
  
Jesse thought about a few politicians who knew about his team. He thought about the glitches in the Sanctuary security system that had been bugging him the past few days. He didn't answer Liam.  
  
"You were right," he told Brennan as they slipped out the police grid, "This was a dangerous outing."  
  
  
***  
  
  
"Someone could've broken into our firewalls," Jesse speculated, his arm perched on the table and staring at the screen that didn't seem ready to sprout any answers.  
  
"Well, that's downright impossible," Liam objected. "Between you and Adam, who could? Besides, if someone's capable of that, wouldn't they be more careful not to leave any hint of doing exactly that?"  
  
It was indeed a good point. If this someone was good enough to elude both him and Adam, then it shouldn't be that difficult to hide their track completely. Yet Jesse wasn't ready to believe these were unrelated events -- the assassination, Shal, the attack at the McGary's, and this. Now this.  
  
When Jesse was about to suggest breaking down the schematics and checking every program for a trace, Brennan appeared from the corner.  
  
"I thought you were with Shalimar," Jesse frowned.  
  
Brennan rubbed his eyes, drained with exhaustion. "Yeah, well, she decided that she wants to use the simulation practice."  
  
Jesse sprang up from the chair. "She's in nowhere near the condition--"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, told her exactly that and more and it didn't work. I need cavalry. Will you go talk to her?"  
  
That stopped Jesse. "Uh, what makes you think she'll listen to me?"  
  
"You can use that sincere, puppy-dog look, tell her you can't do anything unless she gets herself back to the bed. Works every time." When he blankly stared back, Brennan exclaimed, "You mean you didn't even know about it? Liam, tell him."  
  
"Yep, works every single time," Liam easily agreed to Brennan, which rarely happened and therefore may actually be true, "You didn't notice?"  
  
And they were telling him this only *now*? Well, there was a useful information he had known nothing about. "You two didn't fight or anything?" he asked Brennan.  
  
"No."  
  
Jesse frowned, "Brennan."  
  
"No, geez, no. Just go talk her out of the exercise, will you?"  
  
Liam was looking at him expectantly. Brennan pretended to look away and stare at the computer screen with all the nonchalance. Jesse sighed.  
  
He gingerly headed to the exercise room, thinking how this wasn't his role, how he didn't want this, at all. On the way, loud voices from the lab stopped his steps.   
  
"That's it, I'm going to kick his ass, power or no power!"  
  
That voice *had* to belong to Shalimar. Suppressing an amused grin, he walked into the lab, where Adam and Emma were looking definitely frazzled with a very much angry Shal.  
  
"Gosh, what did Bren do this time?"  
  
Everyone in the room froze as soon as his words left his lips. Jesse imagined the room's temperature dropping several digits. And why were Emma and Adam looking at him with enough sympathy to suffocate him? And Shal still hadn't turned to face him. Which should have been a hint for him to get the hell out.  
  
But he was never that smart. "Uh, Shal?"  
  
Even if there hadn't been enough hints, Adam and Emma leaving with all the attempts to be inconspicuous should have been enough. But, again, he was never that smart.   
  
The silence had settled between them like a familiar friend that had no wish to go away. Her back was still on him.  
  
He wished she would turn around, that she would at least see him and for him to see into her eyes. "Shal--"  
  
"You were planning to leave," Shal said, her voice shaking. Never out of weakness. Just anger. Plain anger. Strong Shal. Strong and beautiful.  
  
He might have understood everything at that moment. Why he was sinking.  
  
"You were. Without telling us. Me."  
  
He said nothing, because it was all true.  
  
She turned to him, literally shaking with anger. And her eyes, no longer gold but somehow still the same. "I can't possibly hate you more than I do right now, you know that?"  
  
The dilemma was, he knew all too well that he might not be important enough for her, but still important enough. Jesse tried to smile. The way he knew she wanted to see. "That hurts. You still are kinda my favorite person in the world."  
  
"You liar," she said, still angry, but not really meaning it.  
  
"I don't kid about this kind of stuff, you know."  
  
"Yeah, you just omit to tell me some really important stuff about your life."  
  
"Shal."  
  
"What?" She crossed her arms, pouting and fuming but seemingly unable not to relent to him.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
At that, her expression immediately softened, her futile attempt to keep up with her anger melting away. "Jesse, god, Jesse," she whispered, her voice feather-like, "they don't deserve your love."  
  
Then who does, Shal? Who does?  
  
He didn't ask.  
  
Instead, he tried to smile. Again. "I just thought I should at least listen to her last wish. My uncle seems to think that she left the half of the entire estate to him and the other to me for a belated family reunion, me taking Noah's place."  
  
She could no longer be angry with him, knowing his past the intimately as she did. Her anger changed its target. "Your grandmother abandoned you."  
  
He swallowed a weary smile. "She couldn't accept the truth."  
  
"All of them couldn't, Jesse! And I hardly think they can now! You didn't want that life."  
  
"I didn't choose that life, just like I didn't choose this. I was too young on both accounts. Now I think I am old enough."  
  
For all her new-found happiness, her blindness, she still knew him. She stepped closer and watched his face. Her expression slowly hardened -- she saw through him. "Tell me you were planning to come back. Tell me it was going to be just for a few days and you were planning to come back."  
  
He didn't answer, because he couldn't lie.  
  
"Tell me," her fingers were shaking again, "shaving, haircut, the question...tell me they weren't your goodbye."  
  
He could not lie. Not to her. He tried, tentatively, to explain, "I'm not going anywhere, Shal."  
  
"Why?" her anger was not subdued, "Why not? You were all ready to go. But not now, why? Because of this, because of *me* like this?!"  
  
No, that wasn't it. No, that wasn't--  
  
This time, her anger was from the different plane. He remembered seeing her like this, before.  
  
A single memory out of the treasure box, one that had been buried underneath the new because he had been afraid of losing it. A memory that should have been jaded but wasn't. A long ago, one morning, his first step into the Sanctuary. In this vast, foreign, barren space he had been lost. The sunlight had shone magically through the blinds, and not knowing what to do, he had followed the trace of sounds, any sound.   
  
At the end of the sound was someone who was venting out all her frustration on a harmless dummy.  
  
He had never seen any person that angry in his life.  
  
Anger was a quiet thing in the Kilmartin family. Quiet, silent, and cold. This was different. This girl across the hall was different. Every part of her body was angry, including the eyes. The eyes that he had never seen before. Golden. Like her hair.   
  
"You lost?" she had asked him, in the casual way that indicated she didn't give a damn about him yet did. In that strange, paradoxical way.  
  
He had thought he might not be lost any more.  
  
And now, Shal was standing almost exactly the same way. If she were to ask him the same question again, he would gladly take it. Answer it.  
  
But, no question came.  
  
Shal bristled, "You can go now. Go. I don't need *you* to take care of me. If you haven't noticed, there're three others in this place who can."  
  
He wanted to close his eyes, but didn't. It was an odd feeling, the need to see, with eyes wide open, how the world was shattering into pieces around him. "Yeah, Shal. I noticed."  
  
It was like drowning, this sinking feeling. It was like unfolding a piece of memory he had held clutched in his fist for all these years and finding it shattered. It was like a cup of his favorite coffee that had lost its steam and left him with no consolation.   
  
"I'm not gonna be an excuse for you to put off your past. Go. What's stopping you?"  
  
He thought about the flood, the blueness of it all. How it might have just arrived for him and how he was going to jump out from the Ark. And her, standing right in front of him, demanding an answer that he knew she couldn't accept.  
  
Jesse wondered what would happen if he did answer her question. If she would understand. If the world would change from telling her the truth.  
  
It didn't.  
  
He may have expected this end.  
  
Fate was fickle and unkind and wretched.   
  
  
  
***  
Memories are just where you laid them  
Drag the waters 'till the depths give up their dead  
What did you expect to find?  
Was there something you left behind?  
-Hemorrhage, by Fuel.  
***  
  
  
  
He wakes up. Like emerging from the dark underwater, he breathes in, taking in all the air he can, ignoring the pain and the memory that is momentarily like a blank sheet of paper. Tabular Rasa and the likes.   
  
The voices come back first. Have there been voices? One voice -- impersonal and imposing, leaving no room for anything but surrender -- has at one point boomed through the every corner of the spacious, empty halls of the Sanctuary.   
  
Like: "Stand down, Adam. We would like to make this as painless as possible."  
  
And the other, the ever-familiar voice: "You should've thought about that before coming in here, Sperling. No real warrant has been issued, and as far as I'm concerned, you're nothing more than burglars."  
  
"And you are the security risks."  
  
"Who decides that? You? The last time I checked, this was a democratic country."  
  
"You are well aware that the need of the many outweighs the need of the few. And oh, Adam, no funny business. Your security system is being overwritten as we speak. You have no way out."  
  
No. Way. Out. The phrase boomerangs back and forth.  
  
And it occurs to him--this is his Sanctuary. He's in the Sanctuary. When has he come back from his nostalgic trip to the past? Yes, right after the Bar & Grill. The TV announcer said something about the Most Wanted, and he--  
  
A white hot needle shoots down his spine and breaks down every part of his bone on the way, and when he regains his senses, he realizes he's already collapsed on the floor. That he has been like this for a while.   
  
And he remembers. Oh, does he remember.   
  
He knows that statistically it is not possible to avoid every single one of a hundred bullets aimed to kill him, not possible to get every timing right. The thing about bullets is that even if you avoided a million, just one of them would do its job. One lousy timing, one miscalculated breath, and it has come to this.   
  
It is a decidedly strange sensation, being shot. Blood gushing out and slowly dripping on the floor, hands and clothes pressing onto the hole making not much if not at all difference, and accordingly the world gradually turns surreal and foggy and light. Everything is exactly the same, except little by little, you get to realize something is off. Like the ceiling, for example. It isn't supposed to be spinning, the speed of Moon revolving Earth. Or the sounds. They break down steadily in sync to his breathing, and he has to strain to listen.  
  
"No, no, Jesse, stay with us!"   
  
That hysterical voice, he thinks, sounded suspiciously like Shal's. He's not really sure, with every outline in his vision blurred and her familiar face not to be seen.   
  
"Jesse, no, don't you dare, don't you dare..." her whispers are frantic again, and he thinks he's never heard her like this before. And it may not be because her powers are lost.  
  
A warm, strong hand is on his arm, and he's back to earth again, steady. When it's constant, the pain can be ignored like the tick of the clock. So, steady. The hand over the spot where the pain is shooting through his body. It is her hand that's steadying him, and he is grateful for being able to feel it, if not for anything else.   
  
The dripping stops. Something soft covers his chest. And suddenly he's breathing easier. Steady, steady. His eyes blink open again. Once, twice, and there they are. Shal's near hysterical face and Emma's grim one, looking down. The world is slightly more stable. He tries to smile but hot needles retaliate at his lower chest and he realizes it isn't a good idea.  
  
Emma's hands, Jesse notes, are stained in crimson. And when she leans against the wall, her shoulders sinking, it leaves a stark mark against the gray wall, the stain bleeding into the grayness of all.  
  
"Don't," Shal warns in a husky voice when he tries to get up. Her hands are tight and reassuring and a little too painfully rigid. There are no tears in her eyes, and he's glad. Her golden eyes should not be for tears. The pain, when constant, can be ignored. Like the tick of the clock. Tick. He pushes himself up.  
  
Then he sees something he shouldn't. A body. Or is it? And the familiarity of it all.  
  
No. Not Adam. Not Adam. Can't be.  
  
But it can.  
  
He wonders if the world is going right. If this makes sense to anyone, anybody. If they have blinded themselves to death and decided not to wake up.  
  
"He's alive, but he's not snapping out of it," Brennan says, kneeling in front of Adam. Brennan, the poster child for the Devil-May-Care, is panicked as Jesse has ever seen him, and he thinks this might really be a good time to be frightened.  
  
The several dozen intruders, wearing electricity-proof suits, have come prepared after their brief encounter at the McGary's. They've known exactly what to expect, where to hit, and made his home -- his, Adam's, Emma's, Brennan's, and Shal's -- into their playground, a maze trap for the mice they've come to hunt.  
  
"They're coming," Emma says, her voice absolutely dead.  
  
And they're frozen. Brennan is lost in front of the uselessness of his powers on the intruders, Emma with her fury that is about to burn everything around her, and Shal with her absolute silence.   
  
He pushes himself up, because there is no one else who can do this. "Emma, you have to take the front. Brennan, get Adam. Shal, help me."  
  
"What?"  
  
"We get out, now, like we planned. Brennan?"  
  
Almost instinctively, Brennan understands and jumps into action right away. Emma is a different story. For the first time he can remember, he hears her voice clearly in his head. /No, Jesse. You know you're in no condition--/  
  
"No other choice. My car's parked right outside the wall. We make for that spot," Jesse tells them with finality.   
  
Shal's strong arms (Really, it doesn't matter she is no longer a feral, does it? She's always been the strong one, and she always will be, and he'd like it if she realizes this for herself) hold him. Brennan drags up Adam's limp body. Without a word, Emma takes the point. No more questions asked, her eyes glaring and ready to blast any of the intruders.   
  
"Go!"  
  
They move together, steps entangling with each other. Endless gray walls of the comforting Sanctuary now become narrow and narrow until the only light he sees at the end of the tunnel is the darkness.  
  
And it ends. They reach the particular dingy corner of the Sanctuary, the one Adam told them as the point of entry, the thinnest spot of the thick metal wall and energy barriers that surround the Sanctuary, when Ashlocke had taken over their home.  
  
Breathing is not supposed to be this difficult. He can feel the wall in front of him that he's supposed to dissipate. He can hear Shal breathing hard beside him, smell the blood, the sweat. Yet he can't breathe. This makes no sense, this isn't--  
  
Then it hits him. The shot. Adam's comatose state. Adam's words before he tried to push Jesse out of the way. Jesse, who's been trying clumsily with his already-wounded body to shield his friends from being shot. Adam pushed away Jesse halfway, not completely and enough for both of them to be affected by the shot.  
  
He yelled--"Jesse, no, what they're using now isn't that kind of--"  
  
--the projectile weapon his massed body can shield.   
  
It left him powerless and Adam in coma.  
  
His mutations. They're gone.   
  
Like Shal's.  
  
"Jess?"  
  
Shal and her grief. The footsteps coming closer. Emma reading his mind and trying not to summon her rage that will burn everything. The footsteps coming closer. Brennan and his helplessness and Adam. Oh, Adam...  
  
There is no one else to do this.  
  
Just once more, he tells himself. Once more. Just one more time. His mutations, his power, his curse. Please. Help me.   
  
He pushes himself, as tightly as he can, into the wall, ignoring Shal's gasp. Adam's body might have deflected some of the influence. Please, he whispers to the wall, his words a prayer. Just once more. Help me. Help me.   
  
Exhale.  
  
Then the world dissolves.  
  
/Now!/  
  
Emma hears him. For a fraction of a second, her eyes contain something dark and serious and the Please-Don't glint.   
  
/GO!/  
  
She might have understood him. He's not sure. She drags Brennan and Adam into the dissipating wall. A red flare and two dark specks disappear from his sight. Brilliant gold flickers, and it's dark again. The world is corporeal. And he cannot move. He's known. He cannot move.  
  
He falls. The solid ground meets him.  
  
He may have expected this end.   
  
Because creation myth, any myth, begins with an end that is already decided. Because he collects life, of its disappointment, regret, and love, always love.   
  
And he can say it now. "Shal, I don't think I want to be your brother any more."  
  
Blood tickles down from his forehead. How strange. He vaguely remembers blood is supposed to taste like salt. It doesn't.   
  
They arrive a few seconds later.  
  
  
  
  
  
END Part II.   
Next Up, Part III: The Third (Brennan).  
(Two down, three more...agh.) 


End file.
